ALBANY COUNTY  Having made her first creations at the age of five, Delmar resident Andrea Hersh is telling the truth when she says she has been creating art for as long as she can remember.

Over the years, Hersh’s work has developed to center on a theme of recycling and trash. It was years ago when her now-grown children were born that she imagined the piles of disposable diapers she was tossing away.

“I was imagining millions of diapers piling up,” she said. “I realized I was a part of that – we are all adding to it.”

Hersh found herself wanting to find a beauty in the ugly, and began painting pieces combining trash and flowers.

Submitted photo

“Underneath the Ruffles,” by Susan Spencer Crowe, is featured in Albany International Airport's exhibit “Some Assembly Required.”

“As an artist, mother and woman, I am always balancing everything,” she said. “My work is a reflection of balancing the beauty I see in nature with the ugliness of a disposable culture.”

Hersh is one of 16 artists featured in the latest exhibit to be displayed at the Albany International Airport Gallery: “Some Assembly Required.” The exhibit shows a variety of ways contemporary artists interpret the process of collage by combining different media.

Collage is known by most as cutting and pasting pieces together to form some short of shape. The artists in this exhibit take this concept to a whole new level by connecting unexpected materials in unusual ways.

“There is such a variety in the show its really nice – some people paint, some people cut paper – I think everybody’s idea of putting things together is really interesting,” said Hersh.

Collage is a fairly new undertaking for Hersh.

“I was doing a lot of oil painting and came to sort of a wall – I had to figure out what kind of imagery I wanted to use for my painting,” she said.